Fresh threats from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden could initially unnerve Wall Street this week. But US stocks will rally if President George W. Bush retains the White House and pull back modestly if Senator John Kerry unseats him.
Bin Laden - looking healthy and defiant in his first video appearance in more than a year - said the United States may face renewed attacks, like those that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Al Jazeera TV aired bin Laden's video tape late Friday after the stock market closed.
"Despite entering the fourth year after September 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you, and therefore, the reasons are still there to repeat what happened," bin Laden said.
That is likely to make traders more nervous, come Monday.
For Wall Street, who wins on Tuesday is far less important than just having a winner at all.
The biggest risk for investors is a repeat of the 2000 race, which was not ultimately decided for more than a month because of legal wrangling over voting irregularities in Florida. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell more than 3 percent during that unsettled period.
The market rode into election week on an upswing, with the three most widely watched gauges ending the final week of October higher.
The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P both snapped three-week losing streaks, and the Nasdaq composite rose for the second week in a row. The advance was fuelled in no small part by the retreat in oil prices, which fell nearly 9 percent by week's end after hitting an all-time high above $55 a barrel earlier in the week.
For the week, the Dow climbed 2.76 percent to 10,027.47, the S&P 500 was up 3.13 percent to 1,130.20 and the Nasdaq ended 3.13 percent higher at 1,974.99.
For the month, the Dow ended down 0.5 percent, while the S&P rose 1.4 percent and the Nasdaq jumped 4.1 percent.
And for the year, the Dow is down 4.1 percent and the Nasdaq is down 1.4 percent. The S&P 500 is up 1.6 percent so far in 2004.
Once the dust settles from November 2, if it is clear who has won, investors' focus should turn from politics back to the basic menu of economic data and corporate earnings, analysts said.
The week's biggest economic indicator is Friday's employment report for October, which is expected to show the addition of about 150,000 nonfarm jobs, up from a lower-than-expected 96,000 in September, and an unemployment rate steady at 5.4 percent.
Sluggish job growth has clouded the economic outlook for months and has fuelled investor uncertainty over stocks. Stocks have ended the day lower following each of the past four monthly payroll reports.
The week will also feature figures on service-sector activity, construction spending, personal income, productivity and factory orders.
Corporate earnings remain a key factor, too, with another 50 or more components of the S&P 500 scheduled to report earnings this week. By next Friday, nearly 90 percent of the S&P 500 members will have issued their quarterly report cards.
On Wednesday, the government will report its weekly crude oil inventory figures, a report that has become one of Wall Street's most anticipated weekly data points. This past week's report that crude inventories rose more than expected the previous week provided the catalyst for the big drop in oil prices and triggered big gains in stocks.
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